| |
THE MYSTIC:
Lisa looks up from the computer when she sees a reflection on the screen. She spins her chair around and frowns up at Okana, standing in the doorway to her lab. “None of this makes any sense. I can’t figure out how there can be pure ice below the methane.”
Okana leans against the doorframe. “The ice is a problem, all right, but I’m more concerned about what hit us in the sub.” He sees her frustration. “Dinner’s ready. Let’s get something to eat.”
Lisa stands and Okana follows her across the walkway. When they enter the lounge, the aroma of hot spices fills the air. They see the rest of the crew walking past the kitchen-serving counter, so they continue across the room to join the others filling their plates.
Lisa looks up at the ship’s mechanic, a red-haired woman named Rita Harrow. She’s an engineer, like Okana, and has been flirting with him for the past two months. She’s nice looking, and about five-foot-ten.
Okana moves up beside the first mate, Sam Harrison, a crusty old seaman with a face made of leather from being on the water most of his life. “Smells like your kind of food, Sam. Hot and spicy.”
Harrison smiles, exposing his yellowed teeth. “The hotter the better, since my taste buds ain’t what they use to be.”
Josh steps back to let Lisa get close to the counter, then looks at the pile of food on the plate of the ship’s deckhand, Leroy Bartram, a skinny twenty-four-year-old kid with remnants of a bad case of acne. Bartram does the routine maintenance and cleanup, and any small tasks needed on the ship.
As each fill their plate and grab silverware, they walk to a four-foot by fifteen-foot, dark brown table. Once everyone is seated and well into their meal, Lisa tells them her idea.
“I think we caused the turbulence that nearly killed Mike and Okana. Perhaps whatever is at the bottom of the fracture reacted to the ultrasound? We need to drill down through the ice to find out what that object is.”
Okana looks up from his meal. “I don’t think we should do anything, for the moment. If Lisa’s right and we caused this, I don’t think we should try anything else until we have more information. I’ll call an old friend of mine about it. He’s a geology teacher.”
Mike brushes his white paper napkin across his lips and sets it on the table as he looks at the group. “I agree with Okana. We should check this out before we try anything drastic. In the meantime, I’ll have the Discovery leave port and head in our direction. I’m not saying that we’re going to drill down into the ice just yet, but since I’m paying for it anyway, I want to have her nearby, just in case.”
Harrison reaches over the table, grabs the dish containing the spicy red sauce, and pours some over his chicken and pasta. “I was up on the bridge when that happened down below. I saw something on the surface of the water a short distance from the ship.”
“Can you describe it?” Okana asks.
“It only lasted a fraction of a second, and I was lucky to be looking in the right direction. It was just a thirty-foot diameter circle of neon blue light on the surface of the water. I could tell it was shining up from below.”
“The blue light is what we saw from inside the sub.” Okana tells him. “I was wondering if it could be seen on the surface.”
“It would look pretty at night.” Harrison adds.
Okana stands and picks up his plate and utensils. “I’m going outside to make my call.”
Okana sets his dishes in a plastic tub on the kitchen counter for Bartram to clean, then leaves the room and goes out onto the stern of the ship. He leans against the large white post near the back edge of the deck and stares down into the clear water. He can tell Mike is more shaken up about being tossed around in the sub than he’s showing. He was a little unnerved himself. The energy released by that object during the ultrasound test seems unreal, and where something like that came from?
He takes a deep breath to enjoy the scent of the ocean, but even this far out at sea, the odor of sulfur is discernible in the air from the traffic on the mainland. He slides his phone from his front pocket presses one of the contact numbers, and a recording tells him to leave a message. “Hey, Alex. It’s Okana. I need information about a seismic disturbance, so call me.”
He slides the phone back into his pocket and stares out across the water. The sun is slowly descending over the horizon, creating a light show of orange, yellow, and purple on the bottom of the clouds. When he turns and walks across the deck, a knot forms in his stomach at the magnitude of what they discovered. Whatever is under the ice has been down there for a very long time, and the degree of engineering needed to create such a powerful device is not even possible yet. At least, not on this planet.